Macintoshian Achaia GuidelinesBehavior:Basically, obey the posting guidelines. Beyond that:1. Do not stoop to insults or flaming to make a point. If you are warned to stop, please do so immediately.2. Do not copy and paste large sections of text or inline graphic images from other sites in your posts. Link if you have to, and remember that you are costing other people bandwidth if you do not. We will edit out the links in question if necessary.3. If you perceive a thread is veering off-course, please, please, please either email us at mods@arstechnica.com or use the "Report a Post" feature. Do not play armchair mod.4. If somebody asks a question which has been answered before, don't just yell "OMG USE TEH SEARCH N00B". Point out that the topic has been discussed, and link to a previous thread if necessary. Even if you think it can be answered with a quick Google search, you still don't know all the details, so don't assume anything. We all know the Ars search isn't the greatest, so have a little patience if somebody brings up something that was answered a couple of pages back.5. Do not revive threads over 30 days old. instead, begin a new thread and link to the old one.6. Before starting a new topic, manually check the first 3 or 4 pages of the forum to see if your topic has been recently covered.7. Be nice. (What, nobody else saw "Road House"?)8. No blocking ads, talking about blocking ads, or doing anything else to circumvent the User Agreement.9. Do not edit or delete any of your posts more than one day old. Doing so will result in being banned.

Meets:There is sufficient precedent for Mac-specific meets, although we encourage you to be more open to other forum regulars by posting such threads in the Lounge, where they actually belong. That said, here are some rules for Mac meet threads:1. No more than 2-3 meets active at any time.2. Meet threads will be stickied one week prior to the event. If the appropriate time rolls around and the thread isn't sticky yet, email mods@arstechnica.com.3. If you start a meet thread here and there is also a meet thread in the Lounge, the Lounge one takes precedence and the Achaia one gets locked. Also, no listing of meets in the Lounge "what meets are approaching" thread. You can't have it both ways, sorry.4. If you really want to start a general meet thread in the Lounge but are not a subscriptor, try asking somebody in #macintosh to start it for you.5. Unless a meet is specifically designated Mac-only, expect it to be locked.

As for the other forums, here are some general rules we would like you to keep in mind:

Boot Camp and WindowsHere's a whole new kettle of fish for Mac users: running Windows on Intel Macs, with Apple's help and blessing. Questions about using Boot Camp in particular belong in Mac Achaia. Once you begin installing Windows on your Mac, all questions about installation and troubleshooting belong in either the Microsoft OS & Software Colloqium or NT, Win2K & XP Technical Mojo, depending on the issue. The implication is simple: questions about Windows—no matter what kind of hardware you're running it on—don't belong in the Achaia. That includes drivers for your Mac hardware, Apple-provided or otherwise.

A/V:As the Mac is still strong in the audio-visual field, it's natural to expect a little crossover between the two. Use your best judgement as to whether your thread is Mac-specific or general enough to go in AV (i.e. what adapter do I need for connecting a monitor to my Mac vs what kind of monitor should I buy), and try not to get bent out of shape if one of us moves it for you. Same for threads on the iPod. As a rule, monitor selection/advice threads always belong in A/V Club.

Games:As a reminder, threads about the issue of Macs and their place in the gaming universe are still appropriate topics of discussion in the Achaia, but for questions about specific games or game issues, we ask that you post in the Gaming, Extra Strength Caplets forum, and link you your thread in the perpetual Mac gaming thread here.

Agora:Same as above; items for sale or trade must be posted in the Agora, but can be linked up in the perpetual Mac stuff for sale thread. As always, any Agora threads also need to comply with the Agora Guidelines.

Peripherals and portable devices:Again, same as above. Questions about printers, scanners, FireWire devices, hard drives, and other peripherals go in Other Hardware, not here. Cell phone and PDA questions belong in the Mobile Computing Outpost. If you have a question about OS X drivers for a specific product, you may post it here. However, all such threads will be scrutinized and may be moved to the appropriate forum if a moderator determines it is off-topic here.

(7/3/2007: please note that we're taking a slightly relaxed stance on iPhone threads for a least a short time. We'll re-evaluate once the madness dies down. -- kennedye)

Battlefront:You'd think this one would be obvious but it seems people still have a hard time with it. Understandably, there will be inevitable comparisons to Windows or Linux features, functions, and benefits that come up over the course of many a discussion in the Achaia, and that's fine, since we don't live in a vacuum. However, when it becomes the dominant focus of a thread, you can expect a warning or two, and following that, a lock.

Individuals who can't keep their oh-so-witty slams against Apple or their products to themselves will be warned, and if they don't stop, stopped.

On a related topic, posting one-liner comments like "well what do you expect from M$" or "too bad Linux can't come up with a usable GUI" are equally unwarranted, and will be met with a warning as well. It may still be fashionable to bash Microsoft or Intel on other Mac forums, but it is unwelcome here, and not just because Ars is a predominantly PC site. It's childish, and has no place in serious discussion.

No, that doesn't mean you can't express displeasure with the poor quality of, say, Internet Explorer for OS X. Comments like the examples above, though, are at the same level of maturity as "IBTL" and are out of line.

Dragging threads off-topic with these types of comments will not be tolerated. If a topic warrants that much cross-platform discussion, it goes in the Battlefront.

Please understand that we do not want to turn the Achaia into a police state or a banfest, and to that end we will do our best to warn first, lock later. I still believe this is the best Mac forum on the net, and that's because of the people who post here. We want it to remain that way, through the use of as little moderation from us as possible, but at the same time, we ask that you also make an effort to stay on-topic, informative, and above all, polite to each other.

Perpetual threads"Perpetual" threads. If what you have to say fits into one of those threads, don't be afraid to use it! It keeps the discussion focused on the forum and makes for very entertaining threads that eventually contain an amazing archive of information!Here's a partial list:

How about linking the Agora to the perpetual Mac crap for sale thread?

In fact, it would be cool if you linked all of your bullets (ie. A/V, Games etc.) with their respective forums.

The guidelines look & read very well by the way - so props on a job well done.

I think there was a FAQ thread to post to, but seems like Infopop is kinda tired. If this is the wrong place for feedback on the guidelines, umm, maybe put that in the guidelines! (or terminate this post! Sorry, couldn't resist!

Congrats |P| on your Managing Editor title! I hope that new G5 dualie you ordered was on the Ars Apple tab!

well, after being told i am a not following standard operating procedures for not emailing "mods@arstechnica.com" with concerns -- and seeing others constantly chided for the same -- i finally tried to email that address today.

given that context, you can understand i was more than a little surprised when it got bounced back to my email box (this is the last header):

i'm no header guru -- and i know chris is no longer of this world -- but does the bounceback mean no one at ars got it because all "mods" email goes to that account? or does it mean that there is a list of mod recipients, one of which (chris) didn't get it? looking at the headers there is no indication that anyone at ars received it. please advise.

i am pretty sure this post by kennedy violates both rules (note "fucking moron" and "dorks"). this pissed-off-bully attitude renders the point of his/her post ineffective. you should also know the post amounts to gratuitous piling on -- the offending thread was already locked, only to be opened again by this person solely in order to permit him/her to "vent" in a manner plainly violating the guidelines.

I think you mean "Grizzly Adams." Now if I only could remember what the theme music for the show was'¦ That or find me a grizzy bear.

And, chrisale, if that's you in those photos with your little girl, then it's good to know someone else waited pretty late to have kids. (We've got a six-month going on seven-month at home, and I'm about to face the big four-oh next month. But, it could be just the gray hair.

With the seemingly unending stream of, "When will there be an update to [foo]?" threads lately, may I humbly propose starting a new Mac Buyer's Guide perpetual thread where we can house related information, advice, and speculation? The one linked in the OP is really of no use.

Any chance we can have an official Ars Wiki, or at least a link covering the wiki?

I posted in the open forum help page, and have yet to receive any feedback from moderators. I think it would be an appropriate way of dealing with these issues, without having the recyling of the same sort of threads over and over.

I have been a long time daily consumer of Ars Technica. I find it to be one of the most highly informative, professional and polished sites related to technology on the web. Period. Having said that, one thing has stuck in my craw all of these years. It is the above statement in this thread;

Quote:"because Ars is a predominantly PC site."

I don't think that is any longer an accurate statement, and hasn't been for quite a while. Looking at the index page for the last few years, it is almost all Apple -all of the time.

If you add posts in both Microsoft OS & Software Colloquium and NT, Win2K, & XP Technical Mojo together (as of today 699,568) they do not touch the Macintoshian Achaia's 741,485 posts. So, I do believe that the above statement is no longer accurate and needs revision. Now. Just my $.02.

Can we add a list of good and bad other mac fora to the FAQ? As least it will prevent newbies from stepping into the pile of shit that is rixstep. No, I won't link, but here is the stunt they tried to pull as described by John C. Welch. The Achaia has had more encounters here and here.

Actually this forum is Apple products generally, it always has been, probably always will be, and we're fine with the name still saying "Mac".

This has bugged me for a long, long time.

Then you should adjust your own guidelines and, yes, change the name of this forum. i find it a bizarre policy to have iphones / ipods / apple tvs in a mac forum when there are clearly other fora more suitable for this.

Or just make a Microsoft, Google, Apple, Intel, other corporations, thread and be done with it. Now Apple is being treated as a universe in itself under the pretense of a macintosh platform forum. I love many of Apple's products but find this a shameful attitude not belonging to a site which i assume holds itself to a higher - i would hope independent and unbiased - standard.

Not sure were to post this, but are you going to take measures to avoid the flood of spam threads?

See armwt's message on behalf of all of us mods here. In short: We're aware of the spam problem, and it's something that has vexed various Fora on Ars on and off over the last year. They're unbelievably tenacious; the more obstacles the Tech Team throws in their way, the harder they work to post their nonsense.

We apologize for the mess it's causing in the Ach in particular, and new counter-measures are in the works.

Not sure were to post this, but are you going to take measures to avoid the flood of spam threads?

See armwt's message on behalf of all of us mods here. In short: We're aware of the spam problem, and it's something that has vexed various Fora on Ars on and off over the last year. They're unbelievably tenacious; the more obstacles the Tech Team throws in their way, the harder they work to post their nonsense.

We apologize for the mess it's causing in the Ach in particular, and new counter-measures are in the works.